Has the netbook trend hit its peak?
Tech industry analyst Will Strauss was headed to Barcelona for a wireless trade show and dreading the thought of lugging a 5-pound laptop computer and other accouterments with him wherever he went. So he bought a netbook — with half the weight, twice the battery life and built-in wireless connectivity — and the trip went well. As Strauss reported, it was literally a weight off his shoulders. The Taiwanese-made netbook with a 10-inch screen was fine for using e-mail, limited Web surfing and writing short documents. It lacked the processing power to tackle hefty multimedia assignments, but Strauss wasn’t looking for that anyway. His verdict: Smaller, cheaper and lighter were better for his needs. “I can carry it around all day,” he said. Count Strauss as another supporter of the netbook revolution that is going on in the stodgy personal computer market. In a down economy with weak computer sales, netbooks — which were created only about two years ago — have been the one big growth story.
